(Clearwisdom.net) Dear Master! Dear fellow practitioners around the world!
At the beginning of Zhuan Falun, Master said,
"Throughout the entire course of my lectures on the Fa and cultivation practice, I have been responsible to society and practitioners. The results we have received have been good, and their impact upon the entire society has also been quite good."
This always reminds me to be clear on my responsibility. I also realized that only when we are clear on our responsibilities and strictly follow the requirements of the Fa, can we do well saving sentient beings as well as creating a favorable cultivation environment.
Letting Go of Self and Accepting Responsibilities
In September 1997, I started practicing Falun Dafa in a rural village. Soon afterward, I attended a provincial experience-sharing Fa conference and was deeply moved. After returning, I spent large amounts of time studying the Fa, memorizing and reciting the Fa, doing the exercises, and cultivating my xinxing. When the vicious persecution started in 1999, I had already practiced Dafa for two years and the sacredness of Dafa in my heart had become unshakable. I began telling people of the wonderfulness of Dafa. Although my coworkers acknowledged the improvements in me after I started to practice, they had negative words about Master. Out of anger, I began arguing with them with an attachment of fighting and human notions. I had one thought, that no one is able to stop me from practicing Falun Dafa. Since then, none of my family members or workplace officials asked me about this. The police harassed other practitioners but not me.
Other than two practitioners at my workplace, I did not know many others except one who was living in the city nearby. However, that practitioner was severely persecuted. I was thus isolated from practitioners and was totally involved in my personal cultivation. I later changed jobs, and there were no other practitioners at the new place. Without the environment of group Fa-study, I was drifting in everyday society. I did not meet other practitioners until late 2003.
Deeply regretting the loss during those years, I decided to be diligent and do the three things well. I got in touch with a practitioner in the city and obtained materials from her once a week. Not long after that, I let go of my attachment to fear and was able to distribute informational materials and clarify the truth face-to-face. When no materials were available, I hand-wrote letters in which I explained the truth about Falun Gong and the persecution. Later, more and more materials became available. Enlightened by Master, I helped the practitioners in the countryside, whom I had known previously, to step forward and clarify the truth. Soon afterward, my job changed and I moved to the city, where I met two male practitioners. With access to a motorcycle, I came up with the idea of traveling to more places to distribute truth-clarification materials. In this way, we went to remote areas once a week to distribute materials.
From time to time, Master shows something wonderful to me as an encouragement, and I often feel taken care of. Many magnificent incidents also happened to me. A practitioner and I once went to a place far away to distribute materials. It was very cold and part of the road was a coal transportation line. Upon returning home the next morning, I found myself covered with coal dust. At that time, my house had just been remodeled and no hot water was available. Trembling in the cold, I had no choice but to turn on the water outside. To my surprise, the water was warm. My excitement and gratitude were beyond description.
I gradually earned the trust of other practitioners and I joined a Fa-study group. I had no complaints, since their caution earlier was understandable given the vicious environment of the persecution. The old forces were also interfering by creating barriers between practitioners. These barriers continued for a while, even after I started coordination work. What the old forces didn't realize was that such barriers in turn helped me establish skills to handle various issues independently. Of course the old forces could have used the excuse to help me improve my skills in order to create barriers, but that was not acknowledged by Master. We Dafa practitioners cannot acknowledge it either, because the old forces' basis is selfishness and they want to destroy sentient beings. After joining the group Fa-study, I quickly improved. Master always arranged for diligent practitioners to be around me. I constantly found my shortcomings. I felt truly immersed in the one body group.
During my cultivation in the Fa-rectification, which was less than two years, I didn't feel much pressure. Whenever I had some spare time, I studied the Fa and was able to study it with my heart. When sending forth righteous thoughts, I always felt a strong energy field. Asking people to quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was a challenge for me, but overall it went fairly well. Both my family and work environments were good. In conclusion, I was happy with my cultivation. However, all this changed when Practitioner A was forced to stay away because of the persecution.
At that time, Practitioner B, who worked with Practitioner A on producing truth-clarification materials, approached me and asked me if I could participate. By then, there was only one truth clarification materials production site in our local area and it was run by Practitioners A and B. Information about the site was sensitive. In fact, during the first year that I joined the group Fa-study, practitioners never mentioned the materials production site during discussions. They thought it over again and again before approaching me for help. I could feel the trust from other practitioners and the expectation from Master. Since it was a need for Dafa and the one body, how could I refuse? In Zhuan Falun, Master said,
"There is no precondition for practicing cultivation, and one should practice cultivation if one wants to."
I did not have fear or feel pressure, I just felt honored and responsible. However, I could feel the pressure on Practitioner B. In fact, after Practitioner A was forced to stay out of town, the landlord was nervous and demanded that Practitioner B move the equipment and materials out. Practitioner B could not accept this, so he came to me. We discussed it and considered it as an interference from the old forces. We looked within and sent forth righteous thoughts to eliminate the interference. More than twenty boxes of printed materials were transported to my home. Practitioner B and I looked for places to set up the materials production site, but didn't find an ideal one after looking for a month. During that time, two more projects needed my help, thus I became very busy. For security reasons, no communication took place between different projects. I was thus exhausted and could not concentrate on my Fa-study. After thinking it over, I realized that I experienced vicious interference. Since only the Fa could change this, I realized that I would become an everyday person if I didn't study the Fa. I discussed this with Practitioner B. We agreed that I would stop producing materials for a while and focus on coordinating materials sites. By then, the landlord, who was a practitioner, also had righteous thoughts and allowed us to continue using that place. We were relieved upon hearing this.
Then another test came. After staying out of town for six months, Practitioner A returned and we discussed choosing a coordinator. Most practitioners recommended me and I was surprised by this. I had indeed participated in some projects, but my abilities were very limited compared to other practitioners, and I was far from being an ideal coordinator, one with strong righteous thoughts, solid Fa-study, and capable of doing many things. I tried to explain this to other practitioners, but it seemed as though I was trying to make excuses for my attachment of protecting myself. Master also gave me hints to accept the responsibilities. In the end, I had no choice but to accept it.
This time, I felt "pushed" into that position. I had many notions since my xinxing level was just that high. However, my path had already been changed ever since I started to practice. I must follow the path arranged by Master, not the one by the old forces. When a coordinator does things well, the whole group benefits. In this case, the coordinator doesn't rely on his or her capability or reputation. This can only be achieved when the coordinator walks well the path arranged by Master and does things based on the Fa, because the Fa can resolve everything. If one is too worried about his own coordination ability, he is actually protecting his own reputation and attachment to fame. If one only likes to do things that he is familiar with and doesn't want to do coordination work, he may be afraid of suffering and unwilling to accept responsibilities. From this new situation, many of my attachments were exposed. I realized that I had not placed the needs of Dafa and the needs of the whole body as my highest priority.
Not Shirking Responsibilities After Falling Down
I had no experience in coordination, nor did I know how local projects were coordinated in the past. During this time, I often thought that since this was arranged by Master and in the past I didn't know many of these things, there must be many aspects that needed to be improved in our local area and this required me to walk my path well. The practitioners involved in the coordination have experienced many things through the years. With a sense of responsibility and high xinxing levels, they were able to harmonize the whole body. I felt that if I discussed more with them when issues came up, things would certainly be handled well.
Having said that, although we were able to cooperate with each other well under normal circumstances, sometimes we still used human notions to look at things when certain issues arose. As a result, when we were unable to look within, we had many arguments. For example, some practitioners didn't trust Practitioner A. After he was forced to stay out of town, instead of looking within, some practitioners asked his family if he had an affair, misused money for the production of materials, or had committed other wrongdoings. After these issues were ruled out, they found a copy of a Dafa book that other local practitioners did not have. These practitioners considered this as the root cause--producing Dafa books without authorization, and asked Practitioner A's wife to burn it. These practitioners then went even further and checked if other Dafa books existed in our local area. They believed that Practitioner A had produced many Dafa books without authorization. As a result, they asked other practitioners in the local area to burn these Dafa books.
At that time, I thought that since Dafa books are available for downloading from the Minghui website (Chinese version of Clearwisdom.net), why would someone spend time producing them? Trusting Practitioner A, we stopped the local practitioners from burning the Dafa books. We also decided not to openly discuss this on a large scale, but instead talk about it among coordinators. During a meeting of coordinators however, both sides argued endlessly and considered that the other side was damaging the Fa. I took neither side, but shared my understandings with them separately. They agreed with me but still argued about this. Even after Practitioner A later confirmed that these materials were not prepared by him, the conflict still continued. I didn't know what to do, so I wrote a letter to the Minghui website but did not hear back from them. After trying all these methods, with none of them working, I realized that we had to look within. The issue was finally settled with the help from practitioners working for Minghui. One lesson I learned from this experience was that no matter how correct one is on the surface during a conflict, he or she must look within.
In fact, I still did not know how to look within. Especially when things went smoothly, many human notions were buried and therefore were not eliminated during my cultivation. In the past, in order for me to keep up with the Fa-rectification process, Master helped me to resolve many issues. At the same time, I gained some experience during my coordination work. As more and more practitioners stepped forward and the environment became better and better, I was no longer as modest as I was previously. In Zhuan Falun, Lecture Three, Master said,
"It was more difficult for a young person to conduct himself or herself well. Maybe you would have found this person usually very good, caring little for fame and self-interest, when he did not have many abilities in ordinary human society. Once he became well-known, fame and profit would easily interfere."
If a practitioner pays attention to fame and is eager to be acknowledged by others, he may gradually want to validate himself instead of validating the Fa, which is very dangerous. If such thoughts remain for a long time, one can easily be taken advantage of by the old forces and as a result, the practitioner may be arrested. This is what happened to me. Although with Master's care, I was released very soon, I was put on a police record, and based on information from the police in my hometown, they listed me as a "core" member. This caused losses to both me and other practitioners.
At that time, my xinxing was not up to standard. It was hard for me to coordinate truth-clarification projects, and it was hard to retreat at the same time. Then a practitioner who had a company in another province needed someone with my skills, and I decided to go. But on the day I was buying a train ticket, Master gave me a hint through an everyday person, and I thus decided to stay. Since it was Master's arrangement, I would be able to do it and do it well. I can't just consider my own feelings. I need to think about things based on the needs of practitioners in the local area as a whole.
I did not go to work for several months. Every day, I spent a lot of time memorizing and reciting the Fa, and clearly felt that Master was helping me. I was enlightened to many Fa principles and my righteous thoughts were strengthened. Very often, when I was sending forth righteous thoughts several times during a day, everything had good results. I felt as if my own sending righteous thoughts could disintegrate all evil beings. I studied the Fa in the morning, went out at noon and didn't return home until 10:00 p.m. Because of safety concerns, I normally did not return home in the middle of the day, despite my hunger. I decided to change the operations of the materials production site, from purchasing and transferring, to delivering printed materials. At that time, there was only one practitioner who had access to the Internet and supported two large materials sites and one small site. It did not take much time before we resolved the issues of buying CDs, writing VCDs, and preparing truth-clarification cards. I also found a way of purchasing supplies. However, the equipment at both large materials sites then went down. Only Practitioner A was familiar with this and he had already returned home. I went to him for help. He asked me to look within and improve my xinxing before repairing the equipment. I agreed with him. More than 40 days had passed and he still did not show up. By then, even the computer at the small site stopped working, and we could not print materials. Considering that our equipment was very old and the print quality was not good, Practitioner B and I discussed buying new equipment, so as not to delay saving sentient beings. I went to another city and soon found an all-in-one machine, which was suitable for us. After coming back, we noticed that we only had about 1,000 "yuan" left and it was not even enough to buy supplies. I was not intimidated by the difficulty, nor did I want to raise money from practitioners. I decided to borrow money and return it later. I went to a practitioner, who had a high xinxing level. He knew I would not borrow money for personal use. After giving me the money I had asked for, he told me that I did not need to pay it back. We both knew where the money would go, although we did not talk about it explicitly. All of this only took several days, from planning to receiving the equipment. Although it appeared very difficult at the beginning, everything went smoothly. This enlightened me that Master oversees everything in the Fa-rectification. Everything is tuned for saving sentient beings. The critical part is our basis, that is, whether we consider things based on the Fa.
To solve technical issues, I needed to find Practitioner D, who had been forced to stay out of town. Soon afterward, I met him by accident. It did not take us long to establish two mid-sized materials production sites. Later, more and more family-operated materials sites were established and they began to operate independently. More and more practitioners bought computers, so they could visit the Minghui website. Several other truth-clarification sites were also launched and kept running steadily. Every one of us joined the effort to improve our group.
Here I have very briefly shared two difficult stages for myself and our group as a whole. The hardship was beyond description, and only practitioners who walked with me can understand the process. However, no matter how difficult it was, we made it through. We do not know how much Master has sacrificed for this, and no words can describe my gratitude toward Master. Of course, I have also been through numerous xinxing tests in this process. When facing difficulties, I often thought about Master's care, the needs of Dafa, the need of saving sentient beings, and I reflected on my experiences as well as the experiences of other practitioners, and then I had a new understanding. I still have human notions and there are still areas for us to improve as a whole. I think that since the Fa is so profound, all of us will be rectified by the Fa. Once again, I want to thank Master and thank my fellow practitioners.
Heshi!
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